Chapter 8 - Sales Management

Tracking Individual Performance

When it comes to dealing with your employees, you must always manage based on fact, not opinion. Objective assessment is the only fair way to evaluate your employees. They want (and need) to know how they are doing as part of their own internal motivation. Tracking individual performance is a very effective and worthwhile management process, when used correctly.

The Individual Performance Summary

A sample "Individual Performance Summary" is provided below. The following instructions outline its proper use:

1. Employees must track their own performance on the Individual Performance Summary. It is important that they fill out the form themselves, as it forces them to confront their own performance. The form is simple to fill out and will only take a couple of minutes at the end of each shift. It must be completed at the end of each day before the staff leaves.
   
   
2. All individual statistics must be monitored, including sales, # of customers and number of items sold. This information is then transferred onto the form at the end of the day.
   
   
3. The averages below the double line are the figures that you will manage. Items per Sale is calculated by dividing # of Items Sold by # of Transactions. Average Sale is Actual Sales divided by # of Transactions. Sales per Hour is Actual Sales divided by Hours.
4. The forms are totaled at the end of each week. Weekly averages are calculated using the weekly totals, not by averaging the daily numbers.
   
   
5. The forms should be posted where they can be seen by all staff. It is important to display results.
   
   
6. The Individual Performance Summaries should then be posted to the Weekly Performance Summary (also shown below) at the end of the week. It is this information that will allow you to manage on an objective and effective basis. Always compare individuals in your store to the store average, not to other salespeople. It is important that you use this information and provide feedback, or your staff will see the entire exercise as a waste of time.
   
   
7. You must determine for your own store how issues like gift certificates, layaways, returns, employee purchases, etc., will be handled. The important thing is that you have rules and you are consistent.
   
   

Individual Performance Summary

Employee Name: Tom
Week Of: ______________

Over/Short:
Record the difference between your Actual Sales and your Sales Goal.

Cumulative:
Calculate and record the total amount of your Over/Short as the week progresses. For example, if you are Over $100 on Monday and Over $50 on Tuesday, your Cumulative is $150 ($100 + $50).

Shift Worked/Hours:
Record both the shift you worked and the total hours covered by the shift.

Items Per Sale:
Divide the # of Items Sold by the # of Transactions. This number indicates your proficiency at selling multiple items to your customers.

Average Sale:
Divide your Actual Sales by the # of Transactions. This number indicates your proficiency at selling both multiple items and higher priced merchandise to your customers.

Sales Per Hour:
Divide your Actual Sales by the number of hours you worked for the day. At week's end, divide your actual weekly sales by the total number of hours you worked.

The Weekly Performance Summary

The following example of a Weekly Performance Summary will provide you with the information you need to effectively manage the performance of your staff each week. While daily sales results are important, it is their overall weekly performance that you need to coach.

The information for the Weekly Summary is transferred from the Individual Performance Summaries completed by your staff. When analyzing this data, try to focus on the averages for each individual (Items Per Sale, Average Sale, Sales Per Hour).

Compare these results to the store averages when assessing each employee's performance. While Items Per Sale and Average Sale are important because they tell you about the quality of the sales, Sales Per Hour is the most important because it focuses on the quantity of sales. This represents the real dollars that end up in your cash register.

Again, not all stores can or should track individual sales. If this is the case in your store, just track results for the team as a whole. Be sure to keep everyone focused on the overall results, daily, weekly and monthly.

Weekly Performance Summary

Store: _____________________
Week Of: ______________________